


Mutants? In MY Highschool?

by theMusicalCake



Series: Mutantstuck! [1]
Category: Homestuck, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU-Humanstuck, F/F, F/M, Homestuck - Freeform, M/M, Mutantstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMusicalCake/pseuds/theMusicalCake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave and his friends discover that they're mutants, they are invited to attend Doctor Scratch's School for Gifted Youngsters.</p><p>However, no school will ever be able to protect them from a shadowy organization intent on wiping out all of mutantkind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

 D A V E

 

    Dave Strider quickly decided that if there was a good time to discover you were a mutant, it was definitely when time itself completely stopped around you. He didn't know how to feel about it, really; his older brother Dirk was a mutant too, and had been invited to Dr. Scratch's School for Gifted Youngsters three years ago when his powers had manifested. He still wasn't entirely sure what Dirk's powers actually were, but he was positive that they had something to do with emotions. Dave had never really asked, and Dirk hadn't exactly seemed bothered by his actions. That was just how their relationship worked, he guessed.

    Realizing that he had all the time in the world to figure out how his powers worked on account of everyone else being frozen, Dave decided it was time to experiment a little bit. His classmates didn't seem like they would mind all to much. And besides, he thought, no one pays attention in Home Ec anyways.

    He stood up and walked out the classroom door, making sure not to bump into the student walking to the front of the room to give a presentation. Aradia, he thought her name was. Nice girl, he thought. A little weird, he amended, but nice. On more than one occasion they had spent their entire period just talking about archaeology, which he made her promise not to tell anyone and she just gave him this giant, creepy smile? But she didn't tell anyone. So he guessed she was cool. As Dave scooted past her he accidentally brushed her project a little, and it moved in her grip enough to look like it would fall. As you stop to right the wayward project an idea began forming in his mind, and he quickly pushed it back into position and ran out the door.

    John had a P.E. class that period.

    And Dave was about the prank the prankmaster.

    As Dave walked towards the gym he made a few important stops. First he checked up on the Lalonde twins; they were both in a Creative Writing class, probably writing their wizardly famfiction or something. He peeked in the classroom and almost had a heart attack - Rose was staring right at him. He stood still for a whole minute, refusing to even blink, before realizing that she wasn't blinking either. Sighing in relief, he noted that Roxy was staring at her phone under the desk, smiling at something someone had texted her.

    Current snooping now completed, Dave moved on to his final detour before the gym: Jade Harley, nerd extraordinaire and physics genius. Seriously, Dave didn't understand how she could know so much about the laws of the universe with only the shitty education offered at their school. He walked up to the door of her classroom and, finding it closed, decided to do something a little daring.

    He opened the door to the classroom and walked in, scanning the frozen faces for her green eyes and ridiculously long hair. It didn't take him long to find her, or to see that her class was in the middle of some kind of experiment. Instead of even trying to understand it he made his was carefully through the crowd until he was standing right beside her, then looked at the clipboard she was holding. It had a bunch of times on it, Dave seen; apparently she was timing whatever she was looking at, some sort of machine that had a strange glow coming from the inside of it.

    As Dave reached out to move a piece of it to see what would happen (Jade would surely tell everyone on their study hall if something had gone wrong), he heard a settling of wings behind him.

    He turned, startled, and came face to face with a monster. The _thing_ , whatever it was, was black as pitch, had a dog face, a missing arm, wings, _andholyshitithadasword_ \- Dave jumped out of the way of the swing, grabbing Jade on the was down and tugging her out of the way with him.

    They hit the ground as the sword slammed through Jade's machine, sending smoking bits raining down on the two of them. Dave brushed the burning metal off of himself as Jade screamed in pain when a large chunk of whatever was glowing landed on her.

    Dave jumped up, years of strifing with Dirk taking over his mind and assessing his situation.

    Conditions: Unarmed - bad. Large unknown enemy - also bad. Enemy has a weapon - bad, but changeable. Jade Harley injured and somehow no longer frozen - worse than bad. Dave took a closer look at his opponent, and quickly stepped farther to the side without an arm. Then he stepped in close and punched as hard as he could at what looked like an open wound in its chest.

    Apparently the creature didn't expect an attack, because it didn't even try to block the punch. Instead it let out a breath as if winded and doubled halfway over. Dave threw a kick into its face, knocking it over onto its back. He turned back to Jade, who was still screaming, and backed away from her. She was... glowing wasn't the right word. Cackling with energy was the only thing Dave could think of that would do her state justice. There was green lightning skating over her skin, hissing when it came in contact with the ground. Abruptly she stopped screaming and stood up, looking first at Dave and then at the felled monster. "Holy shit."

    She had dog ears. Why did Jade have dog ears?

    Dave almost started laughing. Instead he quickly walked over to the monster and grabbed its sword, then turned back to Jade. _If you ignore the crazy green lightning,_ he thought, _she looks fine. A little shaken, sure, but fine._ "Jade," he said, "do you think you-" he was cut off as the monster lashed out with its clawed hand and caught Dave in the chest, sending him flying towards Jade.

    He seen a great flash of green and before he hit the ground he was in the hallway, and Jade was running down the hallway away from the science room. He stood up and chased after her, being careful to ignore the spreading wetness in his chest area.

    Despite his injury he quickly caught up to her and wheezed "gym;" breathing was becoming difficult, and he didn't think he could manage much more than one word. He seen the green flash once again, and then he was in the gym with Jade. He looked around and found John and Jake exactly where he knew they would be: John in a makeshift boxing ring and Jake on wrestling mats. He ran over as well as he could to John, who was in mid swing, and touched his arm. Instantly John began moving, finishing his swing and knocking his opponent down. They didn't get back up, a tidbit of information Dave filed away for later parsing. He grabbed John's shoulders and turned him around, and said "Monster. Powers. Time. Frozen. Strife" as fast as he could in response to John's surprised look. As he spoke the gym doors slammed open, and the monster stalked into the room. Dave raised his new sword and faced it across the way, and John swore loudly and entered a boxing stance. Jade, looking much less frightened, had run into the equipment shed with a determined look on her face. Dave didn't have any time to wonder what she was doing, because the monster charged at them.

    John and Dave rushed forward to meet it, John swinging a right hook directly into its snarling face as Dave swung a low lefthand arc at its legs. Both of their attacks collided as the monster landed another shot on Dave, though only a glancing swipe landed on his arm this time. John's fist collided with a loud thud and Dave's swing dug deep into its leg, the hits forcing it down once again. Dave and John jumped away from the prone form as soon as it hit the ground, Dave gritting his teeth against his newest wound. He dropped the sword and raised his other hand to the wound, attempting to staunch the bleeding. His chest was a writeoff; he was already becoming dizzy from loss of blood.

    He heard Jade step back out of the supply room and turned to see what she went to find and almost laughed once again.

    She had broken into the gun chest the school kept for their Marksmanship class he and Jade took the year before (he was a terrible shot, but Jade's grandfather had taken her hunting every weekend before he died and she could shoot like a pro) and had taken the rifle. He didn't know what she planned to do with it - it could hardly shoot at all, and when it did it could only shoot nonlethal little iron balls.

    That didn't seem to bother her at all as she raised the gun to aim, the cackling energy spreading onto the gun and concentrating there.

    She took aim and shot, visibly jolting with recoil as a great ball of green energy rocketed out of the gun and collided with the monster as it began standing. It howled in pain, a sound that Dave could hear in his soul, and disappeared. The three of them stood in shocked silence for a moment, before Jade and John remembered that Dave had recently been mauled and rushed over to him. His energy failed him as they reached him and he collapsed to the ground as time returned to the school.

    Someone screamed, and Dave faintly thought it sounded a lot like Jake. He found that he didn't much care. He was quickly surrounded by people, his vision filled with faces and hands and an encroaching darkness, and then Dirk for some reason? He could almost hear 'don't worry bro we got you help is on the way,' but he found that as the darkness fully took him that he didn't care at all.

 

J A D E

 

     Jade didn't know what was going on.

    She had been working on a science project and suddenly Dave was knocking her over and her back was burning and then she could feel EVERYTHING EVRWHERE and then there was a monster and John and Dave had a sword and they fought, and Jade shot it and it disappeared and time started again and Dave collapsed and his brother was there and then some other adults showed up and took her, Dave, and John away to the principal's office, where the principal was noticeably not; instead there was a bald man in a white suit. He dismissed everyone but the trio from the room, and stared at them. Dave had somehow regained consciousness, and it looked like his wounds had already closed.

    "Now," he started, "I feel that some introductions are in order. Dave, you already know me. It is good to see you again, even under such... unfortunate circumstances. Miss Harley, Mr Egbert, however, have not. It is a pleasure to meet you; my name is Doctor Scratch. I run a boarding school for gifted children such as yourselves." He allowed a moment for that to sink in. "Since some of you have displayed certain gifts today, and since other classmates of yours will also begin to display gifts of their own soon, I decided it prudent to come and ask you all a question."

    Jade cut him off before he could finish. "Gifts? You mean how we were able to fight that monster? But I just shot it, I don't really have any gifts!"

    John and Doctor Scratch both stared at Jade blankly. "Jade," John said softly. "Maybe you should take a look at yourself real quick." Jade looked down at her arms and promptly began waving them wildly, attempting to get the green lightning off. She also became acutely aware that she had two pairs of ears. Her hands darted up to her head, feeling around the foreign new parts. John started laughing, and she shot him an angry glare. He quickly stopped.

    Scratch watched the exchange between them silently, smiling lightly, before he coughed gently to bring their attention back to him. "My question, which I will be posing to you and each of your gifted classmates, is this: would you like to attend my school?"

    Dave shrugged his shoulders and said "sure, why not?" nonchalantly. Damn coolkid, always acting so chill.

    Jade thought about it for a second, and decided that if this man's school was full of people like her it would make sense for her to attend. She also nodded her approval, albeit more animatedly than Dave's.

    John took the most time to think it over, and asked a question Jade hadn't thought of: "but I'm not gifted. I just punched that thing really hard, I didn't make electric bullets or stop time or anything."

    Doctor Scratch looked like he'd been anticipating that question, because he answered with "you may not be aware of your gifts now, Mr. Egbert, but I know that you soon will. Because that is my power: I know of every person, alive, dead, or not yet here, who will develop gifts or powers. Which is why I am here; there are ten children in this building who will soon develop gifts of their own, and I do not want them to be alone when that happens."

    John seemed to take it all in, and quickly became excited at the prospect of having his own powers. "I'll definitely come to your school then, mister Scratch!" John exclaimed. Dave, Jade, and Scratch all smiled at his excitement, before Scratch said "And, please. It's _Doctor_ Scratch, or just Scratch." John, clearly embarassed, nodded quickly. "Well," he said, "now that that has all been sorted out, you all have the rest of the week off. My faculty is dealing with the, ah, 'situation' you experienced today, and this Friday a car shall be sent to your homes to bring you to your new home; my school. Right now there are members of my staff explaining the situation to all of your parents. Now, I would greatly appreciate if you sent in the next group of students on your way out.”

    The three of them quickly filed out into the hallway and Dave pointed to the door while staring at the next group of kids, two of whom Jade knew; Tavros and Karkat were standing with a girl whose hair almost rivaled Jade's. Karkat and Tavros were talking about something (as close to 'talking' as they could get, since apparently his settings were 'loud' and 'louder' while Tavros had to consciously make the effort to not mumble everything), and the girl waved to Dave and shot him a giant smile as she closed the door behind her. Jade looked at Dave to gauge his reaction to the girl's smile, but as usual the Strider only stared impassively back at her before turning to Jade and John.

    Jade filed the interaction away for later investigation.

    “Well kids,” Dave started, looking between John and Jade. “You heard the Doc. Y'all should probably head on home; I'll talk to ya on Pesterchum later on.” With that he walked away from the two, leaving them to figure things out between the two of them.

    Jade grew ever more curious; she knew Dave put on a stoic face, but he was a huge softie inside! Something was not right here, and it was up to her to figure it out. She turned to John and smiled at him, giving him a quick “Bye!” and running of after Dave before John could react, trying to stay as silent as she could so that she would remain undetected by his ninja senses.

    As she followed him she realized where he was going – he was making his way back to the gym. Puzzled, Jade continued to follow him as he walked into the gymnasium, running as quietly as she could to catch the door behind him as it latched. She ducked in after him and walked as though she belonged there when everyone in the room turned to stare at her and Dave. Who, for his part, handled being stared at by a room full of people (and some not-so-people-looking people) dressed in spandex quite well. Jade did not, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming aloud. There was another one of the monsters that had attacked them standing in the gym, right in the middle of the people that saved them!

    Only... this one was white? And everyone seemed to be okay with it standing there? Jade continued to stare at it in fear as Dave kept up his walk towards the group standing in the gym. He stopped abruptly and turned to look at Jade, his expression neutral as he said, “You know, Jade, following people is so hella rude. Like I cannot even begin to explain how many friend rules you're breaking right now I'm so offended I just might die and you'll have to kiss me to bring me back. But I mean, since you're here, would you uh. Would you mind walking with me?” Jade couldn't see behind his shades, but she could tell that Dave was nervous.

    She smiled at him and sped up to match him. “Sure, Dave! Don't you worry, I'll be right beside you.” They cleared the rest of the distance to the group, picking up faint hints of conversation as they closed the gap. Jade paid close attention to the mentions of Jack, inhuman, and mutant. Those were probably important, she thought. She'd have to add that to her ever-growing list of things to look into later.

    When they finally made it to the group they all turned to look at Dave and Jade, their conversation dying down immediately. Dave stared at them with a blank expression while Jade stared at them with a much less blank and much more intimidated one. Jade had seen them all when they had first arrived; apearing out of nowhere and taking over the situation when time came back. The blond one who was staring at Dave with the same expressionless face she was used to seeing on her friend was the first one to react to the situation, grabbing Jake (Jade remembered seeing him outside the Principal's office; maybe her cousin was special too?) and shouting orders at everyone else who appeared. They all did exactly what he said, and no one said anything about the panic on his face. If their looks were anything to go by, the two of them were related. They looked like brothers, but Dave had never said anything about having a brother!

    Jade was pulled out of her thoughts when Dave finally broke the silence. “Bro.” was all he said. Jade felt a moment of triumph when she realized that the two of them were, in fact, brothers. After Dave spoke, there were a few tense seconds of silence before his brother responded with his own “Bro.”

    Everyone lapsed once again into silence, staring between the two Striders with anticipation. Dave once again spoke first, offhandedly saying “So turns out I'm a mutant too, I guess. Looks like all the Striders are freaks, huh?” And then Dirk smiled at him. Jade was surprised once again; she didn't know Striders could smile that widely! And then Dave smiled back! And then they were laughing!

    And then Dave started crying, and Dirk was beside him in an instant guiding him out of the gym and away from Jade. Jade turned back to the rest of the group, who staring out after Dave and Dirk. “Well,” she said, pulling their attention to her. “I don't know about mutant, but it looks like I'm one of you now! I've been enrolled in Scratch's School for Exceptional Whatever!”

    One of the people standing in the group, a girl that looked a lot like the one Karkat was arguing with earlier only wearing a blue skirt with huge glasses and _ohmygod does she have seven pupils in one eye? That's soooooooo cool_ smiled and walked up to Jade, throwing her arm around her and saying “Congrats, sparky! I'm Aranaea, and let me tell you: Scratch's school can be a bit of a drag sometimes, but you'll enjoy it a lot!” Jade smiled back at her; she liked this girl! “Now,” said Aranea, there's a few things I should probably tell you about the school and its history...”


	2. Chapter Two

 D A V E

 

    Dave wasn't sure what he was feeling. He was with his brother again, which was good. Jade was safe, and so was John and Rose and everyone else at his school. Which was also good. However... he and his brother were both mutants. Which was not good. And so was Jade, and John and Rose and a whole lot of other people from his school. Which was definitely not good. Right?

    Dave didn't know what was good or bad anymore.

    His thoughts were interrupted when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and turned around to see John staring at him smiling. “Dave,” he said, “we're gonna be late to class if you don't stop brooding. Let's go!” Dave shook his head to clear away his thoughts and followed John as he left their room.

    It had been two weeks since they'd began attending Scratch's School for Gifted Youngsters, and in that time Dave and his friends had gotten a pretty good grasp on how the school worked. The students bunked two to a room, and classes started at eight o'clock in the morning and finished at four. They had also gotten the opportunity to meet the other ~~mutants~~ students that Doctor Scratch had brought from their school: Aradia Medigo, the girl from Dave's home ec class. She could astrally project herself, and could control time as long as her soul wasn't in her body. Sollux Captor, a nerdy-looking kid who was always hanging out with Aradia. From what Dave could tell he was telekinetic and really liked bees? Fuckin' weirdo, man. Roxy Lalonde, Rose's twin sister. Honestly Dave couldn't figure out what her power was, but John hung out with her all the time and Dave could vaguely remember him mention something about phasing through walls. Vriska Serket and Terezi Pyrope were there too; god they were so weird. Vriska's fake arm and leg always creeped Dave out a little, especially since Vriska would absentmindedly take her arm off if she decided she didn't want to wear it (or decided it would be funny to creep people out). Terezi's eyes were always a little out there too, but since she always wore cool shades like Dave it didn't make him feel as uncomfortable. Vriska liked to show off her power of probability modification, and Terezi usually kept her in line with her ability to read minds and 'see' what was going on. In truth she'd been able to 'see' for a long time, but everyone thought that she was just really good at getting around her surroundings, not that she had superpowers. And then there was Karkat Vantas, the loudest motherfucker on the planet. Seriously, Dave did not know how someone so small could be so incredibly noisy. He wouldn't tell anyone what his power was, or if it had even manifested yet (John's were just starting to show up; super strength and flight. Apparently Roxy dug the Superman look, because John had started doing his hair up like the caped crusader), but judging by how much more irritated Karkat had become in the last two weeks it was a little obvious that not only did he _know_ what his powers were, but he'd known for quite a while and didn't want anyone else to know as well. Dave had to dodge through all the people in the hallways on the way to class; there were literally hundreds of people attending the school. Hundreds of people who were not normal. Some of whom, Dave thought while trying not to think about a very specific someone who he had been friends with for most of his life, had the ability to level entire cities with a wave of their hand. He shuddered as he entered his classroom, still not used to the fact that his history teacher looked like she was only a few years older than him but was easily two hundred years older. He dropped into his seat between John and Rose, pulled out his notebook, and got ready to get schoolfed some wicked knowledge.

    At least mutanthood hadn't changed the mind-killing boredom of school.

 

J A D E

 

    Jade enjoyed classes. She really did; Dave always made fun of her (she knew he didn't mean it) when she showed her enjoyment in scholarly matters – which was frequently.

    But she was having a very hard time enjoying her classes when everyone wouldn't stop staring at her like she was going to explode into a ball of neon green destruction. It's not like she knew how to do that, anyways!

    At least her best friends were in her biology class with her; Karkat and Rose sat beside her, John sat behind her, and Dave sat in front of her. Dave used to sit beside her whenever they used to share classes, but he didn't sit sit beside her in any of the classes here. Or really talked to her all that much since the incident in the gym? Jade was honestly more than a little bothered by the whole situation, but she figured that Dave needed some time to himself to get his act together. When they had first arrived at Scratch's School Karkat plopped down beside her in the one class they shared and said “Harley. Fancy seeing you here.” and nothing else for the rest of the day. Or week. Only this week did he start talking to Jade, and even that was just him muttering under his breath about how 'this teacher actually fucking knows something about biology, call the fucking press' and how sad it was people with a modicum of intelligence were so few and far between that they had begun to classify smart people as mutants. When Karkat said that, a little louder than most of his other mumbling, Dave had flinched and almost thrown his pencil clear across the room (when everyone looked at him he looked around the room and said without pausing “well, looks like I'm not telekinetic. Guess that one's all yours, Jade.” soooo cooool). Today the teacher was talking about plants, which she already knew a whole lot about – Jade already read most of the textbook during her lunch breaks, and most of the information in the text was not new to her – so she was just doodling random plants and squiddles in her textbook while the teacher lectured.

    Rose looked over at her and her doodles, and slowly reached over and touched her hand to the paper. Inky blackness spread out from her fingertips, and Jade had to fight back a gasp as the blackness began to form into a shape that was so typically Rose: a squiddle was now dancing around on her paper, sniffing the flowers and staring at what few notes she had taken with confusion. Jade poked it with her pencil, and let out a quiet squeal when it jiggled in response and bounced up and down, smiling. She started to draw things around the squiddle, a little basketball for it to play with and a cute hat for it to wear, while Rose looked on amusedly. Jade noticed that her fingertips were tinged the same inky black that made up the creature on her page. When she stared pointedly at Rose and then down to her fingers, Rose frowned slightly and stared at her hand until the colour went away and her hands returned to their normal paleness. Jade started at her concernedly until Rose shook her head and mouthed an 'it's fine' at her, and then she looked back down at her page to continue not taking notes. She gasped aloud at what she saw; the drawing had begun to eat her notes, dragging the words on her page into its mouth and staring at her cheerfully. “Stop that” she muttered at it, poking it with her pencil. It didn't seem to be bothered by this; it simply ignored her attacks and continued devouring her work. Jade looked helplessly at Rose, who was staring at the squid she had created in unchecked awe. Jade would find no help from that front.

    She turned to Karkat, hoping he would have some sort of solution to her problem, but he was staring aptly at the teacher and scribbling his notes furiously. _That boy has some serious issues,_ she thought, before poking him in the side hard enough to get him to turn at her, loud admonition on the tip of his tongue. She threw a hand over his mouth before he could get anything out, surprising him enough to stop him from even trying to shout over her hand on his mouth. Jade did not feel like alerting the entire class to the situation that was her notes for the day. She pointed down at her paper and looked down as Karkat did, surprised to see that the squid on her paper was no longer a squiddle.

    After devouring her notes Rose's drawing had quickly turned on Jade's doodles, engorging itself on every piece of graphite and ink on the page. As Jade looked on in a mixture between horror and curiosity she seen eyes and mouths begin opening all over the creature. Tentacles began sprouting from its central mass before Jade's attention was torn from it by Karkat's shouting of “Oh what the everloving _fuck_ is that monstrosity?!”

    Dave turned around to see what the fuss was as Rose threw her hands over the drawing and a muffled chittering became audible in the back of Jade's mind. It stopped as Dave's chair flew backwards and he landed on his back on the ground. Jade stood up, leaning over her desk to make sure Dave was okay because that looked like one heck of a fall, before he shot up from the ground, stared at Jade for half a second, then bolted from the room.

    Jade looked down at the paper, which Rose had taken her hands away from. It was blank and Rose's hands were completely covered in ink. Jade motioned at her hands quickly and Rose caught on, throwing them into her lap as Karkat stared on, dumbfounded. Jade would have giggled at the shocked look on his face if not for the look Dave had given her before he fled the classroom.

    He looked terrified, like that little squiddle was the most horrifying thing he'd ever seen.

    Jade blinked and was at the door, looking back at the teacher and other students apologetically. She didn't like using her powers around so many strangers, even if they were mutants like her; the looks they gave her always made her feel like she didn't quite belong. “Sorry!” she said a little too loudly to the teacher. “Dave just felt really sick, I'm gonna go make sure he's okay! Bye!” As the rest of the class stared at her in confusion she stepped out of the classroom, closing the door behind herself. She walked a little ways away from the door and let her powers go, skin beginning to drip green energy as she let herself relax into her newfound abilities. Since everyone around her was so uncomfortable with her powers, she'd tried to keep them bottled up all the time. Which meant she had to constantly keep herself from glowing green. But Dave was too good a friend to care about what she looked like, and also too important a friend to let wander around the school as freaked out as he was. She closed her eyes and felt outwards, sorting through the everything and trying to find one specific thing.

    She thought of what made Dave _Dave_ , his shades and his red eyes and pale, pale skin; his impassive look that he always wore and that dopey smile he sometimes let slip through when he told a really shitty joke and made her laugh. The more she focused on the thought of Dave the more she could feel a tug in her chest, pulling more of Dave to the forefront of her mind. She started walking without opening her eyes, turning down halls and walking up staircases while memories of Dave rapping at her for her birthday or not coming to school because he'd fought with his brother flew through her mind in rapid-fire bursts. She opened a door and opened her eyes as Dave's face from two weeks ago, when he had asked her to walk with him back to the gym, faded from view.

    And she was met with a very surprised, very not-calm Dave standing on the roof to the school staring at her. _He looks scared_ , she noted. _I wonder why? The picture wasn't_ that _scary_. “Dave,” she said, looking at him “Are you okay?”

    “Yeah Harley I'm all good. Not standing on the roof freaking out like some kind of shitty anime protagonist or anything, that would be fucking stupid as hell. Just. Just needed some air, y'know? School is suffocating, can't keep a free-ass eagle like me down. Can't stop the freedom, baby.” He was refusing to meet her gaze. She could tell, even though she couldn't see his eyes. Jade didn't know how she couldn't tell.

    Jade took a step closer, and it didn't escape her notice that he took a step back, keeping the space between them. “I dunno, Dave,” she said, repeating the action and getting the same result. “You look a lot more like a dead crow than an eagle right now.” Dave's pained expression told her that he was very well aware that he didn't look good.

 

D A V E

 

    Dave was freaking the fuck out. There he was, enjoying not having to think about taking notes for his biology class (seriously Jade was all about that plant shit, she would totally be able to help him with it later), and then Karkles opened his giant mouth and scared the dicks off of him, then he turned around and holy fuck, one of Rose's monsters was on Jade's desk and it was alive. Dave, understandably, freaked the fuck out. He knocked his chair back, dragging himself to the ground in the process – thank _god_ Dirk couldn't see him, he didn't need that on top of everything else – before he shot back to his feet, stared at Jade for less than a second, and darted out of the room.

    As he cleared the classroom Dave felt a pressure layer over himself, and he knew that he had frozen time again. He didn't care; he needed to be somewhere that wasn't that classroom. He decided that the best place to be was the roof. No one would be up there, and it had plenty of fresh air for him to cool down in. He started his jog up.

 

**

 

    He couldn't believe it. He'd unfrozen time for less than three minutes and Jade someone already found him. What were these people, dog- _holy shit it's Jade and she's a monster again. Keep your cool, Strider._

    “Dave,” she said, genuine concern in her voice. “Are you okay?”

 _No_ “Yeah Harley I'm all good. Not standing on the roof freaking out like some kind of shitty anime protagonist or anything, that would be fucking stupid as hell. Just. Just needed some air, y'know? School is suffocating, can't keep a free-ass eagle like me down. Can't stop the freedom, baby.” God he was such an ass. He couldn't even tell one of his _best friends_ that he was freaking out because mutants were Bad and now he was a mutant and so were they! She took a step towards him and he took a step right back, Dirk's training taking over his basic motor functions.

    “I dunno, Dave,” she said, stepping again and goddammit there he goes stepping at the same time, “You look a lot more like a dead crow than an eagle right now.” He grimaced, and mentally kicked himself when her face got ten times more concerned. He was supposed to be the master of cool, dammit! But here he was, panicking. Because of Jade!

    “... Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'm not okay, Jade. This shit is so totally fucked up!” he said, throwing his arms in the air. “This shouldn't be happening! What did we do to deserve this?! I mean, look at you!”

    Her look of concern shifted into a hurt look. “What do you mean... is there something wrong with me?”

 _Shit._ He took a step toward her, “Jade that's not what I meant.” She took a step back from him, mirroring him just the same as he was her moments before. “I mean two weeks ago we were normal! And. And now we're mutants! We're.. oh god. I just. Jesus Christ.” Dave's started coming faster and faster, his heart speeding up and pounding louder and louder until he was sure Jade could hear it. “Jade you're actually super pretty it's just that I don't know what the fuck is going on I mean up to two weeks ago I hadn't spoken to my brother in three years because he's a _mutant_ and now _I'm a mutant_ and mutants are Bad but you and John and Rose are mutants too so mutants can't be bad and I just. I don't know what to do, Jade!” He cried. He dropped to the roof, sitting down with his legs sprawled in front of him. “This is all so fucked up, Jade.” He stared up at her and she stared back at him, watching as her face went from being hurt to understanding, and then to sadness. When she walked over and sat down beside him, he didn't move away. He just looked at her, gaze flicking up to her new ears every so often.

    “When we just got here,” she said, “everyone was staring at me funny and a lot of people wouldn't talk to me. I figured it was because of this,” she said, motioning to her lightning and her ears. “And I decided to see if I could... I dunno. Not be like this, I guess? And Doc Scratch told me that if I could focus enough I could revert back to what I used to look like, but I would have to keep concentrating on it. I wouldn't be able to use my powers fully but at least I wouldn't look like a freak, you know?” She smiled gently at him before continuing, “So I guess I get what you mean by being overwhelmed. I mean, I don't understand the whole 'mutants are bad bluh bluh racism bigotry' thing, which don't try to argue you _know_ that's exactly what it is, but yeah. I think I get the general feeling.”

    Dave was going to object that _'uh, no, Harley, I'm not racist or bigoted that is a Southern trait and he left the South behind a long time ago thank you very much'_ before he stopped himself and thought about it for a second.

    He hadn't really given the people here much of a chance; he'd just assumed that they were all Bad People because they were mutants. “I uh. Wow. I've been kind of an ass, haven't I Harley?” He frowned a bit, realizing that he'd been an ass to her, too. He was still scared of her – not as much as he was before she opened up to him, but there was still a niggling fear in the back of his mind. “I'm sorry I've been so terrible, Jade.”

    Jade threw her arm over his shoulder, pulling him in until the were leaning on each other. He resisted at first, afraid of what the lightning still running over her skin would do to him, but then he relaxed into her and figured he probably wouldn't die from shock. This was Jade Harley he was thinking about; she couldn't hurt a fly if she wanted to. Conveniently pushed to the back of his mind was the fact that less than a month ago she had shot a monster-dog-demon-thing so hard that it had literally disappeared. She wasn't actually that bad to lean against; she was really warm. And the lightning didn't actually feel like anything? If he focused he could feel tingles where he was touching her, but he wasn't sure if that was his imagination or not. “It's okay Dave! I'm always around to help my friends!” She pulled him in tight, hugging him with one arm. “But if you ever say that I'm scary again, I'll teleport you to the moon!” She stared up at the sky, smiling.

    Dave continued to stare at her, not sure if she was joking or not. “Jade what the hell are you even looking at it's not nighttime. You can't see the moon.” She cracked up and started laughing, shoving Dave away when he started laughing too. Soon they were both lying down laughing, enjoying each others' company and how good it felt to hang out without stressing about their new situation.

    Jade sat up quickly, no longer laughing. “Shit, Dave. We should probably get back to class, my notes got eaten by a squid monster and you don't know _anything_ about plants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here y'all go, chapter two! I'll probably edit it once or twice after publishing it like I did the last chapter, just an FYI. It's not gonna be huge changes, probably a tense shift or a POV change here and there.  
> Not a lot happened in this chapter, but I had fun writing it.


	3. Chapter Three

 

**DAY ONE**

J A D E

 

     “Jade I swear to God if you don't stop humming that stupid fucking song I'll rip my eardrums clear out of my skull.”

     Jade thought, not for the first time in the last three months, that maybe choosing Karkat as her partner in their Wilderness Survival class. Everyone else she knew had paired up before she could grab them; John had taken Dave, and Rose had decided not to take the class with them. Karkat was the only other person she knew in the class (that wasn't paired; good luck getting Sollux and Aradia apart, and Vriska and Terezi were somehow even more inseparable), and when she asked him he seemed relieved that he didn't need to ask her instead. Jade didn't mind, she knew how he could get when he felt helpless. “You know Karkat, we are allowed to use our powers for this.” In truth Jade didn't think he would even need to use whatever powers he did have to help. She knew everything there was to know about camping thanks to her grandfather, and her own powers made everything even easier. She was actually limiting which of her powers she used – the ability to simply snap her fingers and bringing them from their small camp in the middle of nowhere (Jaded knew exactly where (Canada. Who would've thought their school could get them into Canada from their school in less than an hour?)) to a five-star restaurant seemed a little contrary to the point of their assignment.

     “I know that you're just trying to trick me into using my shitty powers so you can see what they are, so I'm going to ignore your suggestion and instead do something enjoyable, like slam my face into that pointy-looking tree.” With that said Karkat began walking towards what was actually a surprisingly sharp tree. Jade had never seen one like that before. She quickly reached out with her powers and turned him around before he reached the tree, amused at the face he made at her when he realized what she did. “Jade that is not okay. Not okay at all.” He walked back towards the camp they (she) had set up anyways, and sat down on in front of the fire pit she had had him set up earlier. They hadn't yet gotten around to collecting firewood, but Jade didn't imagine it would be too difficult. “So how fucking long do we have to spend out here again? Just so that I can start counting down seconds like Strider does. That shit's creepy, by the way. I don't know what you see in him.”

     Jade dropped the stick she was holding. “Karkat what the fuck! I don't have a thing for Dave!” She spluttered, turning to him and teleporting the stick she was holding back into her hand. She was getting good at using her powers. “And we have to be out here for a week. It's supposed to take a long time, Karkat; it's the final assignment!”

     He just stared at her, eyes wide for a second before he narrowed them at her. “I don't understand how neither of you can see how in love you are, but it's not my job to make you kiss each other. Whatever. What do you need me to do, Jade, since I clearly still don't know shit all about camping even though you talked me into spending an entire semester learning about this bullshit hobby?” His gaze went to the stick she was holding, then back to her face. “And if you're going to brain me, you might want something better than a piece of dried old wood.”

 

D A V E

 

     “Hey Dave, do these berries look like the edible ones or do they look like the poisonous ones?” Dave looked at the handful of berries John presented to him, staring intently for a few seconds before declaring, “They look maybe okay to me. Eat them so I'll know if they're good.”

     John stared at him for a minute before shoving the berries into his mouth. Dave stared right back, and when John dropped to the ground he shouted “shit!” and rushed over to him, reaching into his pouch that he was totally allowed to take with him and rooting through it, trying to identify the berries that John had shown him. John laughed and sat up, shoulders heaving with the weight of his guffaws.

     “Oh Dave, you should've seen your face! Oh man, it was priceless.” Dave stared at John. “But yeah, those berries are fine to eat. They actually tasted pretty good!” Dave kicked him in the leg and began setting up their camp, ignoring John's complaints of his newly received charleyhorse.

     “Finish setting up camp, Egderp. I'm gonna see about collecting some firewood.

 

**DAY TWO**

 

J A D E

 

     Jade discovered, very early in the morning, that Karkat was extremely easy to scare. She discovered this by not actually thinking to keep her powers in check; when Karkat seen her covered in green lightning with white ears, he simply let out a very small squeak and retreated back into his makeshift sleeping space. Jade laughed at him and finished setting up the fire before he would poke his head back out, saying only, “Holy shit Jade, maybe a little warning that you're going to go fucking neon green furry Zeus? I almost pissed my pants when I seen you!”

     Jade just laughed at him some more, passing him their breakfast: fish she'd caught in the stream near them – 'near' in the sense that after Jade started relaxing she could feel that there was a stream five miles away and teleported there to catch fish before Karkat woke up – and some berries and roots the two of them had dug up the night before. Karkat tore into the fish, not questioning where it came from. If it bothered him that there were no lakes in the immediate area, he didn't say anything.

     “So I figure today we should start actually gathering supplies to last the next week, and then maybe try finding an even better place to camp.” Jade said. “That way we can cruise through the next few days.” She stared at him as he finished his fish, then stared thoughtfully into what was left of the fire – since she'd cooked before he woke up she'd just let the fire die down, and now it was mostly just embers.

     He looked up from the fire and stared at her, before asking her “You just want to find Dave, don't you?” She spluttered once again at Karkat's accusations, this time simply staring at him reproachfully as he began to chuckle at her. “Sure, we can move camp. It's not like this is a particularly good place to be, anyways. There's too many trees.”

     Instead of pointing out that yes, there were lots of trees, because they were in a forest, Jade simply nodded and began taking apart their small camp.

 

D A V E

 

     Dave woke up before the sun, his survival classes with Dirk resurfacing after years of dormancy. He left the camp with his survival kit, slipping comfortably into the time between times that he had entirely to himself as he started digging through the kit for the knife he knew was inside. Knife in hand he headed into the bush, trying to recall Dirk's lessons on skinning rabbits.

     As he began to trek through the trees and undergrowth, he couldn't help but find himself attempting to make as little noise as possible. He didn't know why; nothing else was conscious when he jumped in time like this. But still, he couldn't get himself to relax enough to make noise while walking. He trudged on, surprised at how few animals were around. He'd been walking for ten minutes in his time and he hadn't seen a single living thing, and was beginning to think that there wasn't anything alive in the area, when he came across something that stopped him in his tracks: there was a familiar person standing in the forest, with their back to him.

     Aradia turned around and smiled at Dave, then waved him over. “It's okay, Dave! I just decided to slip away from my camp for a little while. Give myself some free thinking time, you know?” Dave walked towards her and stood beside her, looking her over as he made his way towards her. There was something weird about Aradia, but Dave couldn't place it. She turned back and stared back where she was when Dave found her, sighing. “The forest is such a beautiful place. I'd like to stay here longer, wouldn't you? Just enjoy the nature and the quiet away from people. And who knows, maybe there's something out here to discover! If I knew where we were I'd be able to actually tell if there were any indigenous people living in this area, but I guess the teachers didn't want us knowing where we were in case we decided to prepare.” She looked down to his pack and giggled. “Though not knowing didn't stop you, did it? Who would've thought that Dave Strider was a seasoned survivalist!”

     He stared back sheepishly, putting his knife back into his survival bag. “Yeah, Bro always tried to have me prepared for anything that could happen. He was fucking crazy, but I guess some of the stuff he taught me was actually useful. Who woulda thought?” He stared in the same direction as Aradia, trying to find something to catch his eye. In his opinion there were far too many trees in the woods. He would much prefer to not be out here.

     “That sounds very sensible of your brother. I wish my parents had thought to instill some sort of wilderness knowledge in me when I was a tiny child; if they had I probably wouldn't be in my current situation.” Dave looked back at her, trying to make sense of what she'd just said. He looked her over, trying to figure out what is was about her that was throwing him off. She didn't look any more different from usual than would be expected; her survival clothes were a little messy, and her hair was all over the place, but Dave just assumed that had been because they'd all spent the night in the wilderness. They were bound to be a little messy after that. Dave continued to stare at her, even after she turned and looked at him. “Dave? Is something wrong?” She looked down at herself, trying to see what he was staring at. “Oh!” she said, raising a hand to her face. “Silly me, you weren't there!” she laughed, lowering her hand to her side once again. When she did it Dave could see the faintest line along her face, where her hand had been a moment before.

     “Aradia,” he said slowly, taking a step back towards his camp. “What happened?” He really wished he had his sword with him; instead all he had was a stupid knife. And a tiny survival kit. He cursed his teacher for refusing to allow them to pack their own gear.

     “Well Dave,” she said matter-of-factly, “I'm dead!” she laughed loudly then stopped a moment later, her face the picture of seriousness. “I don't know why it doesn't bother me much; it might have to do with the whole 'not-alive' thing.” She looked back into the distance, seemingly looking for something. “Sollux and I were ambushed a few minutes ago real-time by the thing that attacked the school. It got me, but I left my body before it did. Sollux looked very lasery before I froze time; I think he'll be okay.”

     “Which way was your camp, Aradia?”

 

J A D E

 

     Jade could feel that something was wrong. She could even feel roughly where it was; somewhere about ten miles west of them, in the opposite direction of where they were heading. Which happened to be right towards Dave. Which didn't mean anything! Dave and John both had very useful powers and skillsets; they would make surviving the next week much easier. Jade had no idea where Karkat had gotten the idea that she liked Dave from. Probably those damn romantic comedies he watched all the time, she thought.

     She quickened her pace, signalling for Karkat to do the same, which he did after swearing profusely and walking straight through a bush. She waited for him impatiently. He didn't want to teleport to them because he hated the feeling that suddenly being somewhere else left him, so she had to walk with him to make sure he didn't get lost and fall off a cliff (there were nocliffs nearby, but Karkat was _very_ unlucky).

     Suddenly Dave was three miles farther West than he had been a moment ago; now he was right in the middle of whatever was giving off the bad vibes. Instantly the foreboding aura intensified, setting Jade's hair on edge. She grabbed Karkat and jumped to Dave, ignoring Karkat's indignant screams as she reached through space, into the box under her bed.

     They emerged into a destroyed camp, Karkat slumping to the ground and Jade pulling her favourite rifle into position.

 

D A V E

 

     As soon as Aradia pointed out where her camp was, Dave was on the move. It took him almost thirty minutes to jog there, but he never lost track of which direction he was running.

     He rushed into the clearing Aradia and Sollux had set up camp and immediately regretted it. In the middle of the clearing was the great black beast that had attacked Dave and Jade, frozen mid-step over Aradia's body on its way to Sollux. His eyes were glowing blue and red, and there were tendrils of energy gathering around them.

     Dave tried to ignore the ugly red line torn across Aradia's chest, and her eyes staring wide up at Jack. Dave pulled his knife back out of his pack, positioning himself between Sollux and Jack but making sure to stay out of Sollux's line of sight.

     He unfroze time and braced himself as Sollux's eyes unleashed their powers, catching Jack in the chest and throwing him backwards. The residual energy continued flowing from his eyes, destroying the trees behind where Jack had been standing. His energy faded down to nothing and he collapsed, moaning faintly.

    There was a tremendous ripping sound that came from seemingly everywhere and then Jade and Karkat were standing in the clearing, roughly six feet from Dave and three feet from Sollux. She lifted her gun and shot Jack three times, a quick _pop pop pop_ resounding through the clearing as the bullets impacted the prone villain. Karkat ran to Sollux as Jade released her barrage, dropping to his side and checking his vital signs. He sighed in relief before looking to Dave and then Aradia, who he rushed to and began checking.

     "Don't bother," Dave managed. "She was dead before I got here; she left her body behind and ran into me in the woods." Karkat looked up at him, but Dave wasn't sure he was being seen at all. He walked over and helped Karkat up, and led him away from Aradia. He sat him down beside Sollux and motioned for Jade to follow him to Jack. Dave thought that he had definitely seen better days; his entire front side was burned, and in some places it looked like parts of him had been completely disintegrated by Sollux's display of power. Jade's three shots had gone into his chest, and each of the holes was smoking. Dave realised dumbly that of course Jade had powered up her shots. After what Jack had done last time it only made sense. 

     Jade leaned down to get a closer look at the body, staring at its face and checking out its sword. Satisfied and apparently shaken by her observation, Jade stood quickly and faced Dave. "Where do you keep your best sword?" She demanded, bringing her rifle back up to bear and pointing it at the corpse. "Beside my bed with my other swords, why?" She took her hand off the barrel of the gun and shoved it  _through_ space, the same ripping sound as before tearing through the clearing. "Because," she said, as she dropped a pile of swords that Dave recognized as the ones from his room at the school. "This isn't Jack. There's three more of these things in the woods, and at least one of them knows where another camp is. We have to stop them, Dave."

     Dave picked up his best, most treasured sword - a red-handled shortsword his brother had given him a week before he left - and walked to Jade. She opened space again and stepped through it; Dave followed quickly. "Can't even fucking camp properly anymore," he muttered to himself. He could hear Jade start firing as soon as his foot touched ground, and he rushed to her side to defend her from what was definitely more than three of the black monstrosities that were rushing towards them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that took so long guys! got really caught up in school and everything, college is tons of fun but definitely not a good place to write fanfic!
> 
> anyways this chapter is supposed to be three months after the last one, I figure I should probably get a little better at explaining that... I still don't have a definite timeline for when this story was started, but I'm writing it under the assumption that Xavier's Institute was in-session all year 'round, and that's how I'm writing the story.


	4. Chapter Four

**DAY TWO**

**J A D E**

     Jade quickly discovered that the best way to use her rifle was without a magazine. She would fire a shot, let the chamber empty, and then pull a bullet from somewhere in the world - though usually from her own munitions stash in her grandfather's home - and place it into the now-empty chamber. Then she would repeat this process, every time she shot and hit one of the dozens of monsters rushing at them. Whenever her bullets collided with and subsequently felled one of the dozens of Jacks (and she never missed), it would lie on the ground and very quickly turn into mud. She kept shooting; eventually she was going to shoot one that _wasn't_ going to turn to wet dirt, and when that happened hopefully they would be able to find out what to do about the other two.

Dave wasn't doing too badly against them, either. And Vriska and Terezi, the two whose camp had been under attack, were also doing quite well: Vriska somehow had a handgun and a knife, and while unlike Jade she had a limited amount of bullets, she was putting multiple enemies out of commission with each shot. Terezi was dodging every strike thrown at her and leading groups of the Jacks together, and Dave was jumping between them instantly to deliver strikes that had the preoccupied beasts dropping wetly to the ground.

But still they kept coming, until Vriska ran out of bullets and began relying fully on her knife, which she was using with deadly efficiency. The mud-Jacks quickly became aware of Terezi and Dave's strategy, and they began to ignore the blind girl in favour of the girl out of ammo. Vriska shouted out as first one strike, then three landed as she was mobbed by ten of the Jacks. All of Jade's and Dave's efforts to quell the rush around her couldn't stop the strikes; by the time they had cleared the fray Vriska was coated in mud and blood, and she was swearing up a storm. Terezi rushed to her side, tearing off her sweater to staunch the bleeding. They could all see how lucky Vriska had been: her prosthetic, which had been holding the knife, had taken the brunt of the onslaught. Her chest was still badly cut, and Terezi had a hard time ensuring she was sufficiently covered to prevent as much bleeding as she could.

Jade thought fast - Karkat had gotten the best marks in their class in field medicine, though Aradia had been a close second. Jade crushed that thought before it could take hold and began walking towards the two girls, Dave circling the area to ensure they were safe from further attack. Vriska had stopped shouting and was now sitting up, trying to pry the knife from her prosthetic hand and mumbling curses at it and her own luck. Jade heard the ground erupting behind her and turned to see a sight out of a nightmare: Jack was pouncing on her, teeth bared and sword swinging down. In the second that was unending Jade could predict its exact trajectory, through the air and straight towards her throat. And then there was a loud bang and he was tumbling backwards, and when he collided with the earth he didn't turn into mud. "Huh." She heard Vriska say, seemingly from a hundred feet away. "Guess there was one more bullet. Lucky for Jade, eh Rezi?" Dave rushed back into the camp, looking between Vriska, Jade, and the body, before walking to Jade's side. "You okay?" He asked, touching her shoulder. "You gotta be okay, Jade, because there's a lot of fighting to do and I can't do it with a blind girl and a crazy invalid with an eight fetish."

Jade nodded and chuckled at his summary of the self-proclaimed "Scourge Sisters," and walked over to Vriska to assess the damage; she had already begun to bleed through the makeshift bandages wrapped around her abdomen. Jade decided that it was very much out of her limited skills of field medicine. She had barely passed that subject, much to her chagrin. "Okay!" She exclaimed, getting Vriska and Terezi to quit bickering over whether Vriska had downed more foes than Terezi and Dave's tactic. "We can't leave you here, and there's still at least two more Jacks in the woods, so we're gonna have to move you to where we left Karkat and then move on to help everyone else."

"No offense, superpup," Vriska said, holding onto her side gingerly with her working arm, "but I'm not exactly in a fit state to walk through one of those portals, and I don't think picking me up would be a good idea right now." Jade took in this information for a second before she smiled at her solution. "Well," she started, feeling out to the area between each of them. "It's a good thing I can do this!" She said, as she tore their entire group through space and deposited them a few feet from Karkat, Sollux, and Aradia. Sollux was sitting up beside Karkat, who was standing and pacing in a boxer's stance. He shouted in alarm when they appeared, and Terezi shouted his name in response, laughing at his jitteriness.

He rushed to Terezi, checking her over quickly before hugging her tightly. She hugged him back just as tightly then motioned for him to look after Vriska, who was still on the ground but was now holding her wounds and trying not to grimace. "You good here Karkat?" Dave asked as he walked over to inspect Vriska. "Aside from being completely unarmed while crazy fucking murderhounds wander around, fully intent on killing us all? I'm totally fine."

Jade thought for a minute before appearifying several dozen bullets for Vriska's gun beside her. Hopefully she would be conscious long enough for them to get everyone safe then get them out of there. She grabbed a round and reloaded her gun, ignoring Karkat's shouting to stay still. Satisfied that the four of them would be safe, Jade turned to Dave and signalled him to get ready. She felt out for the other two camps and hastily teleported them to Equius and Nepeta's camp, shoving down the flare of fear that erupted in her stomach when she realized that she couldn't feel Equius anymore.

 

**D A V E**

When they appeared in the campsite Dave had to orient himself quickly. He was having a hard time getting used to the jumps, and this was the first camp that wasn't in a clearing.

Many of the trees around the makeshift camp had deep gouges in them or were missing large branches, but there was nobody in the area. Dave took a step further into the camp, trying to find any tracks or markings that might tell him where everyone went. He couldn't find anything, which was more than a little confusing - Equius was not a small guy. Even their shelter was too small for the guy; he was pushing on seven feet, and the shelter looked like Nepeta, at five feet flat, had some wiggle room. Dave moved to check out their shelter for clues while Jade stood in place, weapon at the ready. There wasn't really anything of note inside; a tiny survival pack (each group had apparently managed to sneak _something_ on the trip. Dave wondered if it was intentionally overlooked) was tucked against a wall, and Nepeta's coat was torn and lying on the ground. Dave feared the worst, and ducked back out of the shelter to tell Jade what he'd found when he was hit from the side by a black blur.

Jade spun when she heard Dave grunt as he hit the ground, and he was quickly on his feet with sword at the ready.

There was no enemy; just the empty forest and the two of them staring at each other. Dave didn't understand. "Wait a minute," he started. "Did you just-" he was cut off as a shadow flew in front of Jade, knocking her over before either of them could react. She flashed back to an upright position before she hit the ground, but they once again lost their opponent before they could engage it. "Fuck. So it's incorporeal, no big deal. I guess we'll just have to be extra fast, then." He dropped into a readied stance, glancing about himself to gain maximum vision in case the Jack attacked from behind. Jade closed her eyes and let her weapon dip slightly, her dog ears swivelling subtly.

Dave had no chance to block as the Jack appeared in front of him, swinging its claws towards his midsection. Just as suddenly as the Jack appeared a wall of muscle came into existence between Dave and it, and he heard a grunt as the mountain in front of him jolted back slightly from the impact of the clawed hand. Then the behemoth of a person that was Equius swung their fist at the Jack's head, and it collapsed to the ground with a heavy _thud_. "Nepeta," Equius called out as he turned to look at Dave. "It is safe to come out now; the enemy has been subdued. Are you alright, David? I tried to be as fast as I could, but I fear I was not fast enough."

Dave looked down to check for mortal wounds, and assured Equius that he would be fine and that there were only a few scrapes from when he had been knocked over. Equius nodded his head after Dave said that and disappeared once again as Nepeta dropped from the treeline onto the fallen Jack, embedding all five of her claws into its neck. Dave thought that quite frankly Nepeta had one of the most useful sets of powers out of anyone: enhanced senses and claws were extremely useful, moreso when given to someone who had years of hunting experience. Equius reappeared as Nepeta stood up off the body, announcing to everyone that no more enemies existed inside the parallel dimension his powers gave him access to.

With that, Jade jumped them all back to camp. Nepeta glanced around quickly as Karkat once again swore loudly in surprise, and Vriska and Terezi laughed at his outburst. Vriska grasped her side as she laughed, but she seemed far better than when they had dropped her off fifteen minutes earlier. Dave figured that whatever Karkat's powers were, they were extremely powerful. "Alright everyone, there's only one more group left and only one more enemy. We'll be back soon, and then I'll teleport everyone back to the school." With that said Jade turned to Dave, then blinked as green fire flared in Dave's vision.

 

**J A D E**

 

They emerged from the teleportation into carnage. Jade struggled to breathe as she took in the massive amounts of blood splattered all around the torn-apart camp. She could hear Dave swear softly before he took off into the camp, but she could only look around at all the destruction. There were claw marks in the trees and the ground around the camp, and an entire decently-sized tree had somehow been uprooted and thrown ten feet, roots and all. Jade began pulsing with energy a little faster, unconsciously preparing herself in case something attacked her. She continued searching around the camp, amazed at how prepared Gamzee and Tavros had managed to become after just one night. Their lean-to had been erected almost perfectly; it had managed to withstand a body being thrown into it. Jade tried not to wonder exactly whose body had been thrown. She stepped closer to the structure, feeling out. She could feel a person inside, but her powers didn't extend to telling whether or not they were still alive. As she stooped to look inside a shuffling behind her stopped her in her tracks. She spun on the spot, bringing her rifle to aim and searching for the source of the noise.

Gamzee Makara had always been one of the people that if Jade had alked to him more frequently she would have called him a good friend. She had always liked how laid-back he was, and when she seen him without Karkat or Tavros he was laughing, napping, or staring into space. If Jade had to pick a word to describe him, she would probably say mellow. The Gamzee Makara standing in front of her now was not mellow. His normally half-lidded eyes were open fully, and a malicious intelligence was shining in place of the usual content glow. He towered a head taller than his normal height - which, at almost six and a half feet tall, was already a lot. In his hand he held a tree root with an end thicker around than Jade's thigh.

He was walking slowly after a Jack, which was attempting to crawl towards Jade or away from Gamzee; she couldn't tell and couldn't formulate a thought well enough to figure it out.

Mainly she was wondering where the hell Dave had gotten to. And whether he would hear her scream if anything happened.

The Jack was still crawling slowly towards her, its face pulled into a monstrous attempt at a contemptuous sneer. Jade decided that it had gotten close enough and she began to aim down her sights before she was stopped by a shout of "don't you motherfucking DO IT, SISTER. This motherfucker hurt my Tav AND I'M GETTING MY MIRTH ON doing it RIGHT ON BACK."

She almost dropped her gun. She almost screamed. She almost teleported away.

But she stayed, and she watched as Gamzee Makara brought his makeshift club down onto the Jack's skull. And then again, and again. The fourth time he brought the branch up she came to her senses, and she ran back towards where she and Dave had appeared. She screamed, then.

She could still hear the sound of the club striking flesh, and the wet sound of it hitting again and again.

She didn't think she'd ever stop hearing it.

 

**D A V E**

 

When Dave heard Jade scream he froze time on instinct. He stopped following the humanlike tracks he'd found and rushed back towards the camp, towards Jade screaming and whatever scared her so badly that it made her scream when what they'd seen so far hadn't.

He quickly found her, frozen mid-step with an expression of pure terror on her face. He left her frozen; if something could scare her that badly, she didn't need to see it again.

A few paces away was Gamzee, and Dave could see what Jade was so scared of. Even frozen in place he was horrifying: his eyes were all red except for the irises, which had taken on an orange colour. He'd grown, Dave noted, almost an entire foot. And his muscles were bulging, bringing down his makeshift club in a slow arc that- "Holy shit," Dave exclaimed softly. "He's still moving." The shock of it caused him to lose focus, and Gamzee's club came swinging down with a vengeance. The sound of it colliding with the Jack spurred Dave into motion.

He tackled into Gamzee's center of mass, knocking him over more out of shock than actual strength. As soon as they hit the ground Dave froze time again, quickly getting to his feet and knocking the club out of Gamzee's hand as he slowly brought it up to hit Dave. Then he kicked the clown in the face, the entire sole of his shoe pushing his face towards the ground. Satisfied that he'd delayed the mutant at least a little, he grabbed the club from where it landed and walked over to Jade.

 

**J A D E**

Jade was running from Gamzee and suddenly Dave was beside her holding Gamzee's club telling her to calm down, it was okay, Gamzee wasn't going anywhere fast. She quickly figured that Dave had done the time thing, and that he was once again doing said time thing. She looked back to where Gamzee was on the ground, only moderately surprised that he was still moving, though extremely slowly.

She thought about what he had said before using his club; if she could believe him, then Tavros was around somewhere. She focused on the area, feeling out for any people moving around.

There was no one; only a few animals creeping around or simply staying in place. Many of them were in the process of fleeing from the fight that had broken out, attempting to get as far as possible from Gamzee and the campsite as possible (Jade agreed with their sentiment). There was a sparrow inside Gamzee and Tavros' lean-to, and it seemed to be one of the few animals not trying to escape the aura of rage. It was just lying there.

Jade focused on the sparrow. Something wasn't right; Tavros was supposed to be here but he wasn't, and there was a bird in his shelter that was there but it shouldn't.

Jade swore so loud Dave jumped, and started running as fast as she could towards the lean-to. Dave chased after her, shouting about how it wasn't time for camping, Harley, it was time to get the fuck out of dodge faster than a roadrunner running from a coyote. She ignored him, swooping into the structure to grab the sparrow before ducking back out to show the animal to Dave. It wasn't in good shape; it looked like it had been batted around by a cat, and its legs were very clearly askew.

Before either of them could say anything about the poor state of the bird, Dave's hold on time was violently shattered. The jump hit Jade like a truck; she keeled over, clutching the bird to her chest, and was violently I'll.

"Motherfuckers," Gamzee snarled from a few feet away. "What are you up and doing WITH MY BOY TAVROS THERE."

 

D A V E

 

Dave put himself squarely between Gamzee and Jade, raising his sword. Gamzee stared at him lazily, and when Dave stared back silently he began to chuckle slowly. "What," he drawled. "Are ya gonna cut me? SLICE ME UP GOOD, HUH? Well let's go then, Shades! BRING IT THE FUCK ON BOY!"

He charged at Dave, raising the club above his head. Dave's mind cleared like he had been trained to, and he began doing what he did best.

He didn't even need to use his powers.

Gamzee was coming in for a head-on swing, so he stepped towards him to close the gap himself. As soon as he was close he shifted to his right; Gamzee was carrying the club in his left hand, and the move put Gamzee at a disadvantage. Dave swung upwards along Gamzee's side, bringing the blade through Gamzee's side from his hip to armpit. Gamzee started roaring; Dave almost faltered as he continued through on his step past him, but he steeled himself against the sound and continued his attack. Now behind Gamzee, Dave spun on the ball of his foot and brought his sword arcing down, and through Gamzee's calf.

Dave quickly stepped back around him as he fell, making sure to stay out of arm's reach as he once again put himself between Jade and Gamzee. He had to give it to the other teen; even with severed muscles, Gamzee wasn't giving up. He snarled at Dave from where he lay in his slowly spreading pool, struggling to drag himself to his feet. He watched as he struggled harder and harder, slowly closing the distance Dave had put between them.

Dave watched in a mixture of awe and disgust as Gamzee got back to his feet, balancing entirely on his left leg and holding his club in his right hand, using it like a walking stick. He stared Dave dead in the eye and began roaring at him once again.

But this time something else started happening. Gamzee seemed to expand, muscles growing larger and his bones cracking as they too began to grow. Dave and Jade stared on in horror as he grew, roaring the entire time, until he stood a foot taller than when Dave had cut him down.

"WHAT NOW, FUCKERS?" He shouted. Dave stared him in the eye, hands tightening on the hilt of his blade until his knuckles were bone white. " **YOU STILL THINK YOU CAN UP AND BEAT ME**? THAT'S STRAIGHT UP PRECIOUS, SHADES." He stepped towards Dave and suddenly Dave was flying through the air and into a tree on the far side of the campsite. "AIN'T NO ONE GONNA BE HURTIN TAV ANYMORE. **NO ONE, YOU HEAR**?" he stepped towards Jade and Dave tried to get to his feet, but the pain he felt when he moved almost knocked him unconscious. Jade flashed across the clearing and between Gamzee and himself before he could get to her, and when she reappeared she had her rifle in her hands and the bird floating close by in her electric green grasp. She brought her gun to bear and let loose a bolt of green energy directly into Gamzee's face. He staggered back, bringing a hand to his head to cover the smoking wound. " **MOTHERFUCK** " He shouted, staring at Jade reproachfully. The bird started moving, roused to consciousness by the volume of the seven-foot goliath's voice. Gamzee noticed this and stepped towards Jade and the bird, so she shot three more times: twice into his chest, knocking him farther back, and another, larger blast directly into his face that sent him stumbling to his back.

The force of Gamzee hitting the ground shocked Dave out of his staring, and he began laboriously dragging himself to Jade. She kept her gun trained on the still form of Gamzee lying in the clearing, but she glanced to Dave for a split second before returning to her watch.

It took some time (exactly one minute and seven seconds by Dave's ever-present timer) but Dave crawled the three feet to Jade. She hadn't moved an inch, and neither had Gamzee. He pulled a page from Gamzee's book and used his sword as a support, dragging himself to his foot. His left arm and leg were broken at worst, so he was practically leaning on his sword by the time he got entirely up. The bird was moving quite a lot now, and Dave stared at it as it struggled in Jade's grip. It looked almost like it was attempting to fly, but instead of trying to get away from the situation it looked almost like it was trying to go towards Gamzee.

"Holy shit," he breathed, ignoring the pain in his chest when he spoke. "Jade teleport us back, the bird is Tavros." She stared at him in confusion before looking at Tavros, eyes widening in realisation. Dave was surrounded in the familiar green fire and before he could blink he was standing in the clearing with Karkat and co., and so was Jade and Tavros.

And so was Gamzee's limp form. Dave made sure to keep an eye on him, even when Karkat started freaking out and Vriska shouted at him to shut up. When Terezi started cackling about something, he still didn't look away. But when everyone started shouting about Tavros, and Dave heard a mumbled "yeah... H-hi..." He looked away from Gamzee.

Tavros didn't look good. He was still being held up by Jade's powers, but his legs were very clearly hanging limply. He didn't look like he was in too much pain, but there was at least a large amount of discomfort on his face. "Can... Can you put me down, please? Beside Gam, if it's not too much to ask? He doesn't look, uh, too happy." Dave shot his head back to watching Gamzee, berating himself for letting something distract him.

Gamzee was shooting them the nastiest glare Dave had ever seen, but he hadn't stood up. He was just lying on the ground, staring at them angrily. He stared at Tavros as he was slowly lowered beside him, and as soon as Jade released her from her grasp Gamzee sat up and wrapped his arms around him carefully. As his arms tightened around Tavros he hissed in pain, and before Dave could do anything Karkat was there inspecting Tavros.

Gamzee started to snarl and Dave stepped forward to put himself in between them, but before he could finish his step Karkat looked up, slapped Gamzee full across the face, and told him flatly to "shut the fuck up, you stupid stoner." Dave stared on in shock, and so did everyone else - including Gamzee. Karkat continued looking over Tavros, and when he ordered Gamzee to "move your arms you piece of shit, I can't get to his back." Gamzee complied, and after a short period Karkat stepped back, a crestfallen look on his face. "I can't fix this," he muttered. "Jesus, he... I can't. I don't know what to do, his back is fucked."

Everyone stared in silence, unsure of what to do. Karkat was the only one of them left with medical training, _and_ his power had healing aspects. If he couldn't fix Tavros, then they had to get him to a hospital - fast.

"Alright kids," Vriska said from where she was sitting, propped up against Terezi. She looked a lot better than when Dave last saw her. "It's been fun, don't get me wrong, but I really don't want to be here anymore. Jade, do your thing and let's get home." Everyone turned to look at Jade, and when she nodded her head and started concentrating everyone prepared themselves for the jump.

But when the jump didn't come after fifteen seconds, Dave looked at Jade to see what was wrong. She was focusing hard, and her power was flaring on her skin, but nothing was happening. After another twenty seconds of Dave staring at her awkwardly she opened her eyes and said, "guys, I can't get us to teleport. Something's wrong."

%MCEPASTEBIN%

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey kids! sorry it's been so long, college has been hell. Honestly the only time I've had to write this has been on my way to classes in the morning, which is completely butts. But here it is! Hopefully I'll have more before long, what with the christmas break coming up and all.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one is here! Chapter two should be up as soon as I write it, but I don't exactly have a schedule set for writing and all that.
> 
> EDIT: I fixed a typo that I didn't catch the first twenty times I read this chapter. I am such a butt (minor perspective change, because this used to be in second person but then I changed it to third because I liked how it felt more).
> 
> EDIT 2: fixed up a description of Jade because I forgot to mention something, also added indents (but not really I guess? spacebars count to me idgaf) because "blah blah HTML blah blah your indents are gone"


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